United Nations Holds Data Forum in Authoritarian, Anti-Free Speech China

The United Nations is UN-dismayed by the Chinese Communist Party’s many crimes against humanity. In fact, the UN is currently hosting its World Data Forum 2023 in China. Because the country with the world’s worst dictatorship and the least free speech is clearly an excellent candidate for a forum on “building a pathway to better data,” right?

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), besides being history’s greatest mass murderer and continuing to commit genocide, runs a dictatorial censorship regime and exercises restrictive government control over all tech companies. Indeed, only days before the UN Data Forum convened, the CCP issued draft regulations for artificial intelligence (AI). These included a requirement for generative AI to “reflect the Socialist Core Values,” and gave the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the CCP government censorship agency, greater control over AI users and providers.

The UN World Data Forum 2023 is taking place April 24-27 in Hangzhou, China. “With the aim to spur data innovation, nurture partnerships, mobilize high-level political and financial support for data while building a pathway to better data for sustainable development, the UN World Data Forum brings together annually more than 20,000 data experts,” the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) announced.